Sweeping Changes
by BettyK
Summary: The time window before the enforcement of the Bringing Rejuvenation out of Matrimony programme is drawing to a close, and Hermione is preparing to leave the country rather than be forced into marriage - but even the best laid plans can be waylaid by a preponderance of prosecco and a chance encounter with a certain Slytherin. (Marriage Law fic; HG/SS, DM/LL)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"How have I accumulated so many _things_?"

Knick-knacks and tchotchkes abounded around her, some packed away while others teetered in very un-Hermione-like heaps. She had started by organising by rooms – that was easy. All pots and pans in one box, all dishes in another, clothes and bedsheets in a third, books in the next twenty or so. She got cocky then, until she considered the rest of the vast amounts of bits and bobs accumulated over more than a decade of travelling the world.

She shook her head and turned away, reaching for the kettle and her last remaining mug. She still had a week until the big move. Further packing could wait until another day. She let the steam curl around her face as she inhaled the velvety scent of vanilla rooibos. Would they have a similar tea selection over in the States? Or would she have to beg Draco and Luna to send her care packages? How did transatlantic Wizarding post even work?

She set her mug down and picked up the pile of post, tapping it against the table's surface for a moment before flipping through, deliberately ignoring the scarlet envelope with the shimmering Ministry logo near the top. Ron's unmistakable chicken scratch jumped out at her, and she plucked it from the stack. She knew Harry wasn't coming to her leaving do tonight, but maybe Ron…

" _Hi 'Mione, I can't believe you're leaving us! I'm sorry it's been so long since we've caught up, but Lavender and the girls haven't been very well, and work has been sending me from pillar to post all around the country. We'll have to come visit you in America for sure, as soon as you're settled in. I'm sure the girls would love to travel, and dad's been raving on about Disney, whatever that is. But have a fantastic night tonight, I hope the move goes well, and I know you'll be spectacular in your new role. We love you. Love, Ron."_

Hermione blinked rapidly, feeling a bittersweet twinge curl around her belly before she tucked the note back into its envelope and set the pile down. She took a big glug of still-too-hot tea, and she blamed the sudden moisture in her eyes on a scalded tongue and throat as she quelled the wave of nostalgia and memories that sprung up in her traitorous brain. She took a deep and steadying breath.

According to her watch, Hermione had just enough time to stop being a Mopey McMoperson and actually put some effort into changing for her party. Yes, it was disappointing that her childhood friends couldn't (wouldn't?) come, she told herself firmly, but she did have lovely people who would show up tonight to spend their Friday evening celebrating her. The least she could do would be to perk up and show a bit of willing. Walking into her bedroom, she waved a hand at the sleek little clock radio and the Wizarding Wireless station flickered to life.

"And coming up on our Friday News Bite at Five, we'll interview Sarah Beardsley, Minster for Magical Health and Population, on the question on everyone's lips: What will happen when the Ministry's BROOM deadline passes next week? Who's left, and what will they-"

Hermione dove toward the radio, smacking the switch to turn off the magical antenna as soon as she was in range. She pulled her iPhone from her pocket and plugged it in instead, exhaling gently as the brash chords and baseline of "Veteran Cosmic Rocker" filled the room. There were very few problems in life where her dad rock playlist couldn't at least take the edge off.

x.x.x.x

Hermione apparated to the secluded spot behind the skips in the alleyway and hoped she had gotten the location right. She'd never been to the Owl and Scroll before, but she knew it was one of the only Wizarding pubs in this area of South London, and Ellie from work had known the manager well enough to get a decent rate on the back room. Hermione had initially pushed for the Leaky Cauldron for old times' sake, but to expect everyone to get home from Diagon Alley all the way across London after a Friday night out was a bit unreasonable. Plus, Luna later reasoned, it would be hard enough to say goodbye to everyone as it was without the location itself being steeped with memories of people who weren't there.

Hermione tugged at the hem of her dress. Most of her clothes were packed, and she hadn't had the heart to dive into one of the few already sealed boxes for a change of heart. She'd laid out this outfit a few weeks ago, choosing the Gryffindor-red dress and gold strappy heels optimistically. It had been so long since she had had a night out, so she figured that she might as well go all out and do it properly. But when the night finally rolled around, she felt chilly and exposed in the short frock and a bit gaudy in the shiny shoes and red lipstick. She didn't feel unattractive, per se, but she felt like an imposter in her own body.

She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. It was as if she'd stepped into a time machine. The olde-worlde dark wood panelling combined with the swathes of floor-length fabric on the robe-wearing patrons in the main part of the pub made her feel like she'd be arrested for public indecency for exposing a glimmer of thigh.

"Hermione!" a chirpy voice cut through the sedate murmur of office workers enjoying their end-of-week pint. "You're here!"

A blonde witch more bubble gum than person in a hot pink bandage dress clutched Hermione by the arm and dragged her through the pub to the function room in the back. Before she could blink, a glass of prosecco was pressed into Hermione's hand, and she was immediately surrounded by hugs and chatter.

"If you smother her now, she'll never make it to America," Draco Malfoy said, arching a brow. He stood at the edge of the room like a marble statue in expensively cut charcoal robes, looking positively regal. The effect was ruined somewhat by the beaming six-year-old clutched bodily to his left arm.

"Draco," Hermione called out, trying to keep the relief from her voice as she extricated herself from the throng and made her way over. "You made it! And hello, Auggie."

"Of course we made it. We wouldn't miss it. Augustus, go and fetch your mother."

The youngest Malfoy scurried off, returning with Luna Lovegood Malfoy, luminous as her namesake in a diaphanous silver maxi dress, her blonde hair in an intricate updo.

"Luna! You look like a fairy princess!"

"And you look like a vixen– you scrub up nicely! Don't let the gnargles see. They're drawn to red, you know." Luna winked. "Drink up! There's plenty more where that came from. We've bought out all the bubbles the pub had in stock, so we're going to send you off in style."

"You shouldn't have! That must have cost a fortune."

Draco scoffed. "What's the point of being a… What was it that you called me some years back, a 'poncey little inheritance toad'?" He spread his hands and shrugged. "What's the point of being a poncey little inheritance toad if you can't use it on alcohol-fuelled debauchery in the name of friendship?"

Auggie tugged at his father's sleeve, looking thoughtful.

"Daddy, if Aunty 'Mione thinks you're a toad, does that make me a tadpole?"

Hermione snorted into her prosecco and immediately relaxed. Bit by bit, and with the help of a not insignificant quantity of bubbly, her friends eased her into the throng. Auggie was removed by a nanny within the first half an hour, and the small area designated as the dance floor at the back of the pub soon filled with whirling partygoers, Hermione in the thick of them. It was amazing what a little prosecco and a cushioning charm under her heels did for Hermione's dancing skills.

After a particularly athletic group shout-along to "Mr. Brightside," ending with Draco bodily picking her up and twirling her dangerously close to the pub's ceiling beams, Hermione's lungs heaved, and her legs trembled. She extricated herself from the masses and sought out a shadowed corner of peace, flinging herself into a chair and flopping her head and shoulders onto the sticky table top. She closed her eyes as the floor wobbled and spun.

"Good evening, Miss Granger."

She turned her head to the side, right eye peeking over her arm. She could have sworn she saw a very fuzzy, distorted vision of someone with the exact same nose as her old Potions Master, but all wavy as if viewed through a large pint glass full of water.

"I've never been drunk enough to hallucinate before… And why Professor Snape?" she moaned.

"I hate to disappoint you, Miss Granger, but that day has not yet arrived. In order to stave it off even further, I'd suggest getting that glass of water in front of you down your neck sooner rather than later."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Hermione felt a lot more sober than she had in the past few hours. She steadily sipped over half of the pint glass full of water before setting it down and blinking for a moment.

"Professor Snape? Sorry, Mister Snape," she said, sounding far more clipped than she intended in her efforts to stop any slurring.

"Ye gods, woman, you're giving me flashbacks of being a first year."

"Says the ex-professor who's still referred to me as Miss Granger after I haven't been in your classroom for a decade. I don't have any house points for you to take at the moment though, so I'm afraid I've rather ruined your fun." She leaned back, feeling the traitorous bubble of prosecco-fuelled mirth threatening to take over again.

"Impertinent as usual, I see, Miss Granger," he replied, settling back and lifting his glass to his lips, smirking.

"Until my dying day, Severrino," Hermione tossed back, shooting him some finger guns. Severus choked on his ale.

"Point taken, Hermione," he managed.

"What are you doing here?"

"That's an interesting question to ask a man having a few pints after a long day. But I'll entertain you, this once. The juicy truth is… that I am a man having a few pints after a long day. I'm often in this neighbourhood when I have a delivery to make, and I can _usually-_ " he shot a look over to the mass of inebriated witches and wizards "-count on a civilised drink here before heading home. I think it would be more justified for me to ask that question of you."

"It's my leaving do. I've never been to this pub in my life. But Ellie at work knew that they did a decent rate for parties, so here we are." Hermione shrugged and gently rocked her glass back and forth, watching the water lap up the sides. "I know you'll probably make me regret saying this the minute it's out of my mouth, but you're welcome to join us if you'd like. Draco's bought enough drinks to give an erumpant alcohol poisoning, so there's plenty to go around."

"I really don't think that's a good idea," Severus said in staccato tones, sucking down the dregs of his pint and standing to make a hasty exit. "Best of luck on your future endeavours, Miss Gran… Hermione."

"Godfather!" a patrician voice slurred as if on cue. "What a pleasant surprise! 'Mione, why didn't you tell me you invited Severus?"

Draco thrust forward a fluted glass in each hand and let his grip go, leaving Severus and Hermione no choice but to grab at the stems or else let the glasses tumble to the floor.

"That's because she didn't," Severus snapped. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it seems, and I was just going."

"Oh, come on, Severus," Draco wheedled. "Lighten up and have one. I mean, you're wearing a ponytail, for Merlin's sake. Surely that means that you've unclenched enough over the past few years to have a drink or two. And look there, your glass was empty, and now you have a full one. Serendipity!"

"I don't think that would be at all appropriate."

"Uncle Sev," Draco intoned like a funeral director, placing his hand on his heart and schooling his face to look solemn, "if you don't stay and mourn our Hermione's imminent and unwilling departure away from friends, family, and all in life she holds dear, driven away by the Minister of Magic's cruel hand, then you are not the great man I once thought you were."

Draco turned on his heel and stalked off with determined footfalls and a Snape-worthy swish of charcoal wool, just far enough to preserve the dramatics before hiding behind a column and peeking around to see what happened next.

"Sorry," Hermione groaned. "With enough alcohol, Draco thinks he transfigures into Laurence Olivier. To be fair though, it is Friday. Unless you have other engagements for the evening, you're welcome to stay. I promise I won't make you hit the dance floor."

Severus shook his head and rolled his eyes into the stratosphere, but he took a long sip from the flute in his hand and gracefully bent himself back into his chair.

Hermione was far enough gone that the most reasonable course of action seemed to be to immediately neck the glass of fizzy liquid courage in one long gulp. Severus raised an eyebrow.

"Did you have a comment?" she asked, her words flavoured with a tinge of bitterness. "I might as well get sloppy drunk. I have literally nothing to lose, barring getting arrested. I'm leaving in a week. I'll never see most of these people again, and I probably won't even be able to come back to London again until – if – this horrid law is repealed." She shocked herself with the anger licking the underside of her words, all merriment suddenly fleeing. "So what's the point? Might as well get pissed and forget for a little while." She rose and walked with slightly swaying steps to the table with the bottles and poured herself another serving, toting it back to the table.

The moment she sat, she heard Severus clear his throat. She looked across the table to see him dangling a very empty fluted glass from his tapered fingers. She saw no hint of sneer on his face, even with the extra scrutiny allowed since the heavy curtains of hair were no longer obscuring a large part of it.

"Misery loves company, and I've been told miserable is an area at which I excel. Seems a shame to waste this excess of natural talent," he said with a not unkind smirk, and he got up to get his own refill.

"Well bugger me," Hermione whispered under her breath as he swivelled to return to their table.

x.x.x.x

"You wouldn't!" Hermione squealed, two hours and an indeterminable number of glasses later. "You couldn't!"

"Why not?"

"It's just so… so… Slytherin!" she giggled, slapping both hands over her mouth and leaning forward, elbows on the table's edge.

Severus hiked the corner of his mouth upward, the nearest Hermione had ever seen him to an honest-to-Merlin smile, and he leaned back against the wall behind him. He lifted his shoulders in a loose shrug, brushing a smooth lock of hair that had slipped from his ponytail back behind his ear.

"Did you forget to whom you were speaking, Miss Granger? Ten points from Gryffindor."

Hermione erupted in peals of laughter so sonorous that more than half of the people still remotely open to external stimuli on the dance floor wheeled around to track where it was coming from. Draco's eyes bulged from his head, but Luna, softly swaying from side to side at a vastly different pace than the music, patted his arm and drew him close again.

"That's a detention I assume then, Professor?" Hermione had meant it to sound teasing, honest, but the husky, breathy voice that came out of her mouth sounded flirtier than anything she'd ever uttered purposefully in her life. She felt her face flush and prickle.

"Oh absolutely, Miss Granger." Severus's words had a sibilant slur around their edges. The thinnest sheen of sweat beaded his forehead, and he laughed, a low, rumbling noise that Hermione swore she could feel more than hear. "Alternatively, we could completely humiliate the Ministry of Magic. Or you could jet off to America and leave everything behind you."

"Are you saying I'm taking the coward's way out?" Hermione snapped, swinging across to anger with alcoholically lubricated ease.

"Hush, you firebrand. I was implying nothing of the sort. Do you honestly think I of all people could criticise someone for seeking protection from a tyrannical and unmoveable force? I hid in a castle like a hamster in a cage for over a decade. At least you'll have a whole massive new country to roam around."

"I'm being ungrateful. I know." Hermione cupped her cheek in her palm, letting her elbow slide forward and her spine slump. "I should count myself lucky to have found a good job over there in time with a university to sponsor the visa, and you're right, I will have a good degree of freedom once I'm over there. This is a privilege lots of other British witches have not been afforded. There are a lot of women out there married to complete oafs – or worse – thanks to the Ministry. It's 2018, not 1618. This should not be happening!"

"Just because they're not shooting snake-tongued skulls into the sky doesn't mean this isn't the move of a dictatorship," Severus intoned. A thick silence settled between them for several minutes as they each contemplated the roiling anger they held toward the perpetrators of the legislation.

"Did you receive any petitions?" Severus blurted. He drew back, spine ramrod straight as he looked stricken at himself. "I apologize, Hermione. That question was highly inappropriate."

"Doesn't matter." She lifted and lowered one shoulder, eyes focused on a whorl in the wood of the table. "I've been sent a few."

That was a lie. The Ministry-sealed scarlet envelopes had steadily trickled in, the trickle widening to a flood as the deadline went from months to weeks away. She'd started off by opening them out of a sense of morbid curiosity. The first few names that she saw ranged from the previous generations her parents' (and even grandparents'!) ages all the way down to people she recognised as fellow students from her Hogwarts days.

Even the names that didn't make her recoil still made her feel ill. A smattering of pure- and half-blood friends and acquaintances had put in offers to be kind, but as touched as she was, the pity made her skin crawl. It would be immoral to condemn any of them to a future with someone they didn't love just to save her own skin. Even Remus Lupin, bless him, offered, and Merlin knew that man had been through enough sacrifice.

When she realised that the recently and suspiciously widowed Crabbe patriarch and Vincent Crabbe Jr. had both put offers in on the same day, that was the final straw. From then on out, the shimmering scarlet envelopes went straight into the fire.

"And nobody tickled your fancy enough?"

"Well, I'm not planning on snogging at the altar with anyone who makes me want to rip my own skin off strip by strip, so that ruled out about 90% of the petitioning contingent, and the other 10%..."

"Gryffindors, the lot of them?"

"Precisely."

"What you need is to ditch the nobility and find a partner in crime, so to speak, someone with their own bone to pick with the Ministry. If you each have equal motivation to act, there's no power imbalance and no nauseating saviour complex. And to make it worthwhile enough to negate the opportunity cost of giving up the new position and relative freedom that a trans-Atlantic move would bring you, it would also need to be someone with whom nuptials would splatter the front pages of all the papers."

"And where would I find someone like that?" Hermione asked, mainly stalling for time as her brain whirred against its boozy fetters.

"Why don't you revisit my earlier suggestion, offered again this time without jest. I am the recipient of an Order of Merlin, second class – not that the bauble means much in itself, but you would think..." His voice trailed off for a moment, and he sucked in a breath. "And yet I remain blacklisted. No Wizarding university or corporate research and development firm will hire me."

"What have you been doing for the past ten years then?" Hermione blurted. She smacked both hands over her mouth, eyes wide. "Sorry," she moaned. "That came out wrong!"

"It's a fair question." Severus shrugged, mouth a tight, pinched line. "I stayed on at Hogwarts as long as I could bear it, and after I resigned, I've been doing my own research in my spare time while eking out a living brewing stock for shops and hospitals."

"That's ridiculous!" Hermione fumed. "You're a national hero!"

"Steady on. I don't want the pomp and bloody circumstance. All I want is a proper job."

Hermione had a manic gleam in her eye that, although it supported his end game, still made Severus a bit uncomfortable. He hearkened back to her crusade for house elves years ago – what was that called? P.U.K.E.? Or something unfortunate along those lines. The idea of becoming one of the Gryffindor golden girl's pet projects made his teeth itch, but he was a desperate man floating on prosecco bubbles, and he was enough of a Slytherin to know when it was time to take any port in a storm.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It was funny how a stockpile of nuclear warheads could not only fit but explode in the limited space between her eyebrows and her hairline, Hermione mused as she pressed her eyelids shut against the shards of light coming in around the edges of her curtains. She turned over and pulled her duvet over her head, only to unroll herself to lurch toward the bin thirty seconds later as her stomach turned itself inside out.

She cast a quick wandless Evanesco at the mess, thanking the lucky stars that she had at least made it home. She had no memory whatsoever of how the previous evening had ended. Draco had probably dropped her home. Wait, scratch that – one of her last fuzzy memories included Draco windmilling across the dance floor with arms outstretched to "The Year Two-Thousand". Maybe Luna had been in charge of end-of-the-night arrangements then.

Only the promise of the hangover relief potion in her bathroom cabinet motivated Hermione to unfold out of her slump on the floor. She pulled the cork out with her teeth, sucking down the viscous dark purple, bitterly aniseed-flavoured sludge out of the glass phial with a grimace.

It wasn't perfect – if a potion could vanish all traces of a hangover, wizards and witches would drink all day and night and not have a single functioning liver or full-time job between them – but it turned Hermione from a fuzzy node of nauseous pain to a somewhat unsteady but functioning human being again. A blistering shower knocked the rest of the hangover crud into submission, and Hermione emerged from the steam relatively back to normal.

She pulled on the comfiest clothes she could still be seen in in public: soft leggings, knit tunic top, giant chunky cardigan, and slouchy ankle boots, and unlocked her mobile phone to respond to the text from Draco that misery loved both company and a cooked breakfast, and Luna was doing a fry-up if she wanted to partake. There was only one correct answer – Hermione was raised better than to turn down a cooked breakfast.

She knelt by the fireplace, scrabbling for the old ice cream tub full of Floo powder and ruing that the time spent finding an affordable London flat with a human-sized fireplace would soon be for naught. Before she could chuck a handful of shimmering dust in, the unmistakeable tap and scratch of an owl's beak came from the direction of the window. Groaning, she heaved herself up to go relieve the bird of its burden.

The owl gave her a beady glare as she unfastened the rolled-up envelope.

"I'm sorry, mate. I'm out of owl treats. I'm moving, don't you know?" she sighed.

But owls are not known for their vast reserves of empathy, and this one was having a particularly bad day. It jerked its head back rapidly and spread its wings, flapping hard enough to put her stacks of paper and knickknacks asunder.

"Alright, alright! Bloody bird! If my hash browns get cold because of you…" Hermione grumbled to herself as she fumbled in the kitchen. She pulled a Glamorgan sausage out of a packet, defrosted it with a quick charm, and waved it at the owl.

"Sorry mate, you can't turn up to a vegetarian's flat and expect prime rib."

The owl ruffled its neck feathers in disgust before it snatched the sausage out of Hermione's hand, grizzled, and flew away. Hermione's mobile dinged again. She gave a fleeting glance to the A4-sized shimmering envelope, a bright gold this time, with its heavy Ministry-crested wax seal, twice the size of the normal dreaded marital missive, and chucked it onto her dining table – the Ministry must have been getting really desperate in the week leading up to the deadline if they're sending out that monstrosity – and dove toward the Floo.

x.x.x.x

"Auggie, aren't you going to eat your sausages?"

"I want to be a veggie-rarian like Auntie Mione." The six-year-old stuck out his lower lip and put his fists on his hips to demonstrate the strength of his conviction.

"You're a bad influence, Granger," Draco mock-growled, although his complaints abruptly ceased when Luna tipped Auggie's cut-up sausage chunks onto his plate and slipped her son an extra hash brown as a replacement.

"Don't worry," Hermione said with a bittersweet smile, patting her stomach as she leaned back in the padded leather dining chair. "I won't be corrupting your carnivorous teachings for much longer." She pushed with her toes to tip it up onto its back legs, feeling the disapproving glares of the painted figures in gilded frames on the wall behind her prickle the back of her neck.

It had naturally taken Hermione a number of years to feel relaxed at Malfoy Manner, and even now she made her excuses whenever possible to avoid the fancier parties Draco and Luna threw in the grandiose state rooms. But at this point, she could mooch around quite happily in the relatively cosier apartment in which the little nuclear family spent most of their time.

"We haven't told A-u-g-g-i-e that you're m-o-v-i-n-g a-w-a-y yet," Luna cautioned.

Hermione sighed. She didn't blame them, but it still made it difficult. She forced her lips into a lifeless smile that felt tacked on with drawing pins.

"M… O... V…" Auggie intoned, tracing letters onto the inlaid surface of the table.

"Auggie, darling," Luna interrupted, "Why don't you run along now and colour in a page from your new Quidditch colouring book to give to Auntie Hermione. It's been ever so long since you've made her a nice picture."

Auggie slid down from his seat and wandered off, still muttering letters under his breath.

"The lad's too clever by half," Draco said with equal parts pride and trepidation. "Soon there'll be no keeping any secrets."

"You have to tell him soon. He'll be miserable if you don't even give him a chance to say goodbye," Hermione admonished.

" _More_ miserable, you mean," Luna added.

"Look, let's not dwell on it. If we spend the whole of the next few days weeping and wailing and rending our clothing about me going, it's going to be dead boring and a really shit time. Let's talk about something else, anything else."

"The heffalumps and woozles were quite active this morning," Luna said, her voice dreamy. "I saw them on the lawn. It was odd… They only get excited when there's a sort of electric energy in the air. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Luna Lovegood Malfoy, are you forgetting I'm a muggle-born? Those are from Winnie the Pooh." Hermione laughed, a proper belly laugh.

"Fine," Luna harrumphed, winking as she pouted. She quickly brightened, leaning in with her elbows on the table. "I saw you getting very chummy with our dear ex-Potions professor last night."

"Chummy? I was very drunk! I probably could have gotten chummy with my left shoe last night, you both force-fed me so much prosecco. Wait… I didn't… Nothing happened, did it?"

"You didn't snog Professor Snape, if that's what you're wondering."

"Oh thank goodness!" Hermione put her hand to her throat. "Only I can't exactly remember past a certain point, so I was worried… Can you imagine what the papers would have said if anything had happened?"

"I can see it now," Draco intoned, reaching across to pick up the still rolled copy of the Daily Prophet from the table. He whipped off the string and unfurled it with a flourish, its edge flapping perilously close to the butter dish. "I can imagine the headline: 'War Hero-Turned-Rebellious Spinster Hermione Granger Sucks Face with Ex-Death Eater' would be something those hacks would churn out, I'd wager…" He trailed off, mouth stuck partly open.

"Are you okay, dear?" Luna asked as she leaned in to peer at the newsprint. The colour drained from her face as her eyes skittered across the text.

Hermione lunged forward to snatch the paper, her flung-out arm setting her empty china teacup off-kilter. It wobbled off its saucer and rolled off the table's edge, hitting the carpet with a crash and tinkle. Nobody in the room so much as flinched.

"Wedding Bells Set to Ring for BROOM's Most Surprising Engagement Yet!" screamed the headline, above a spliced-together set of pictures of Hermione and Severus from the Order of Merlin awards ceremony nearly a decade prior.

"With less than a week to go before the final deadline for the Minister of Magic's controversial Bringing Rejuvenation Out of Matrimony programme, or BROOM, the last minute engagements are flying in thick and fast," the article simpered. "This legislation, part of the Ministry's campaign to address Britain's post-war Wizarding population decline and spike in magically challenged Wizarding children, has played matchmaker to a number of unconventional unions over the past year since its activation.

"But in a turnout for the wedding guestbooks, a confidential source at the Ministry's BROOM office has revealed to us that in the wee hours of this morning, Miss Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin First Class, has accepted the petition of Mr Severus Snape, ex-Death Eater…"

"They actually had the nerve to call him an ex-Death Eater," Hermione muttered, kneading her brow with her knuckles.

" _That's_ what you're taking issue with right now?" Draco spluttered.

"Well, the rest of the content is obviously a work of fiction, so why even be concerned? Plus, I'll be long gone before all this really hits the fan, gossip-wise, but he's the one that has to stay and live with it." Hermione tried for a calm tone to counteract the twisting in her belly.

"Where would they even get the idea to make it up?" Luna asked.

"Some scumbag must have been earwigging in the pub last night. Severus and I had a bit of a what-if about it, but we didn't actually do anything."

"I'm sure you didn't. It's the Prophet, after all," Draco scoffed. "The day that's reliable journalism is the day that I run away to elope with Rita Skeeter."

Draco cringed, having thoroughly creeped himself out, and Luna gave him a thwack on the arm. Hermione felt the knot in her stomach start to untwist ever so slightly. Her friends were right, as they usually were. It was all some petty gossip writ large, and there'd come a time when they'd all laugh about it.

x.x.x.x

Hermione, now fuelled with enough carbohydrates to face a few hours of hard-core packing, wriggled out of the fireplace and back into her cardboard-cluttered sitting room. It had sounded like such a good idea at the time, when the crumbs of wartime paranoia still stuck to her, but she would definitely re-think the anti-Apparition security system on her new place in America, that was for sure.

She'd knuckle down and do the kitchen today, she'd decided. For some reason, the idea of packing up such quotidian items as pans and teaspoons had made everything seem a bit too real – the illogical part of her mind clung to the fact that as long as the cupboard was full of mugs and the baking tins with the labels on remained untouched in the drawer under the cooker, nothing would actually properly change.

She loaded her arms with magically shrunken boxes and sheaves of packing paper, toted it all into the kitchen, and made the practical decision that she couldn't possibly get started properly without another cup of tea in her belly for fuel. As the kettle whooshed and jiggled merrily on its base, a glimmer nagged the corner of Hermione's eye, that stupid gaudy envelope.

She'd at least look at it for a chuckle before she incinerated it, she figured. The Ministry was probably trying to scrounge an extra few galleons out of people with some sort of "premium" petition to stand out from the normal dross – she wouldn't put a stunt like that past them. She peeled the heavy seal away, pulled out the letter, and felt her knees buckle under her as she crashed to the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Yet another set of screeching and scraping noises assaulted Hermione's eardrums. She groaned and ratcheted her wand jerkily upwards toward the set of speakers, turning up the volume. The sing-song strains of Lindisfarne's "Fog on the Tyne" failed to mask the scrabbling of owl claws on window glass, and Hermione grimaced – perhaps the next album she put on should be more on the Iron Maiden spectrum.

She chucked coffee mugs and dishes into boxes to the beat of the music, the cushioning charm she'd wrapped each item in at the start protecting them from the impact, as she hummed with militant intensity. Only when the scratching subsided did she allow her manic motions to still.

She scrubbed the wispy flyaways of hair back from where they stuck to her forehead, raking her fingers along her scalp toward the haphazard bun she'd twisted and stabbed with a biro to keep her mane contained while she worked. She sighed, turning from the boxes and picking up a can of Irn Bru. She held the cold, wet metal against her forehead and cheeks for a few moments and then cracked it open, sucking down the soda as fast as she could stand the bubbles.

 _Thud!_

The knock – no, pound – on the door made her jump. An arc of orange flew from the mouth of the can as she jerked her hand and spun. Her heart threw itself against her collarbones as she froze in a slight defensive crouch.

 _I'm not home,_ she thought fervently toward the door. _Not home, not home, nobody home!_

"I can hear your music," a firm voice shouted through the wood. "You can ignore owls, but you won't ignore me. I'd advise you to open this door before I'm forced to remove it myself."

He had a point, she conceded. Her music's volume was high enough that she wasn't sure why her neighbours weren't clattering fists and broomsticks on the adjoining walls. Why hadn't she thought of a silencing charm? _"Are you a witch or not?"_ a voice form years ago echoed through her head. Yet she still felt rooted to the spot, limbs and mouth unwilling to obey even if she wanted to tell them to respond.

"Stubborn witch!" the voice spat, and she felt her intricate security wards begin to strain as he searched for vulnerabilities. His probing found the tiniest chink, which spurred her to act at last.

"You can't just break in!" she yelped, wincing at the shrill sound of her own voice. "That's breaking and entering!"

"Call the aurors then," he bit out, complicated spellwork straining his words.

She hesitated for just a moment, mouth gaping open and snapping shut. She quelled a savage urge to stamp her foot. _Infuriating man!_

"If you are in a state of undress, let me know now, and I will pause while you ensure you are suitably attired for a conversation." He waited a beat.

Hermione looked down at her red plaid pajama shorts and faded black camisole smeared with dust and grime from packing. She snorted. If he was going to break in, he deserved to have his eyeballs curdled by a bit of sartorial hideousness.

"I will take your silence as an assurance that this is not the case then. Miss Gran- Hermione, I am coming through this door whether I have to unpick your wards thread by thread or you open it for me. I can guarantee you that if you choose the former rather than the latter, the discussion that then ensues will _not_ go well for you."

"Is there any chance it ever would have anyway, you arrogant prick?" she snarled, but she lifted her hand and let the wards loosen. Just because she'd let him into her flat didn't mean she didn't feel confident in her ability to knock him flat on his arse if he tried anything though.

He stepped through the door, eyes widening slightly at the chaos of her sitting room before taking a spot on a wooden chair to face her. She eyed him defiantly, back ramrod straight and jaw clenched.

"For Merlin's sake, woman, I haven't come here to put a sack over your head and carry you back to my cave over my shoulder!" He spread his hands in front of himself, palms upward. "I just want to talk about this like the pair of adults I had _thought_ we were."

Hermione watched as the former Potions professor entered the increasingly barren flat that was so recently her little nook of safety away from the world. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans, black leather boots, and a black leather jacket over a black shirt. She had never seen muggle clothes look so… well, Snape-ish. His hair was corralled in a queue at the base of his neck once again. She forced herself to relax her shoulders, loosening the muscles that were hoisting them towards her earlobes. She straightened her spine, imagining each vertebra stacking itself on top of the one below one by one as she took a few steadying breaths, which proved to be no match once the hysteria set in.

"Like adults, yes? Well then, let's handle this the _adult_ way and chalk it up to a night of silliness caused by _adult_ beverages. Let's shake hands in a very _adult_ manner, and then I'll leave you to get on with your _adult_ business of the day as I finish packing to drag my _adult_ self over an ocean to start my new _adult_ life in a new _adult_ role in a country I've only ever seen on television."

"What role?" Severus's voice cut in in an even tone.

His calmness broke the back of her panic, and she paused, brain kicking a bit back into gear.

"I've been accepted as a visiting international fellow in Defence Against the Dark Arts at the Georgia University of the Magical Arts, on the campus of the muggle University of Georgia. All this mess," she swept her hands around, "is the result of a mad flurry of packing for the move."

"That sounds prestigious," Severus replied, inclining his head. Hermione felt the apples of her cheeks redden.

"I don't know about that," she prevaricated. "But I was lucky to get such a post on short notice. I was sure, so sure, that all this BROOM nonsense would be long gone once people came to their senses, so I only started making plans to move within the last few months."

"You might be the first Gryffindor in history with a sense of modesty," Severus quipped, and she rolled her eyes. He hesitated, and although Hermione wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't been there to witness it herself, he looked unsure for a moment. His lips pursed slightly as if he was about to speak and then relaxed again.

"So," Hermione said as the awkward silence descended around like an old coat, "I suppose I should offer you an olive branch that may or may not look suspiciously like a cup of tea. What kind would you like?"

"Thank you. What types of tea do you have?" Severus said, surprisingly civilly.

"Normal and Earl Grey are my usual company teas," Hermione said, and then she paused to gauge his reaction. He said nothing. "And then I have several varieties of green tea, white tea, rooibos, oolong, pu-erh, and lapsang souchong."

"I wouldn't have taken you for a lapsang drinker, Miss Gr… Hermione. One of the few perks of my exile into infamy is to be able to enjoy it at will. Back at Hogwarts, Flitwick and Sprout banned it from the staff room and the Head Table, declaring unequivocally that it smelled like, I quote, 'someone set fire to an old shoe covered in tar.'"

Hermione laughed, genuine peals of humour, as she imagined the diminutive duo ganging up to dictate Severus's cuppa choices.

"To be honest," she said when she had caught her breath, "I hadn't even heard of it until a few years ago when Draco introduced me to it." She paused and looked pained, unsure how mentioning the son of his former school friend would affect Severus. She chose that moment to put the few steps of distance between the settee and the kitchen in between them.

"You keep in touch regularly with Draco, then?" he asked, voice even as he followed her. "I noted he was at your party, but I didn't know how close you were with him."

In for a penny, in for a pound, Hermione's inner Gryffindor shrugged.

"Keep in touch with him? We're practically siblings at this point. I'm godmother to Auggie as well."

"Auggie? Ah, of course. Young Augustus. I'd seen the birth announcement in the _Prophet_ , one of the last times I'd deigned to read that rag." Severus looked thoughtful for a moment. "I did always wonder if, once you'd both stopped snarling and trying to rip each other's throats out, you and my godson would get along quite well."

Hermione watched the water swirl the curled wisps of tea leaves around the Brown Betty teapot as she poured, unsure what to say. His godson? And yet he heard about the birth of Draco's son via the newspaper. Draco had never mentioned his godfather either. Just how isolated had Snape been over the past years? The one blessing was that if he no longer read the _Prophet_ , he wouldn't have seen the embarrassing dross it had carried about the two of them. She'd take even small mercies at this point.

"Do you take milk?"

"Gods no," Severus said. "I prefer to actually taste the tea."

"Neither do I, unless it's cheap builders'," Hermione mused, "and for the same reason." She eyed the small hourglass that timed the tea's brewing, and when the last few grains had fallen, she poured it through the silver strainer into two dove-grey mugs. If it was just her on her own, she did the pop-a-teabag-in-a-mug routine, but she relished the chance to perform the full ceremony with company. She carried the mugs past Severus and back into the sitting room on an enamel tray, perching it on one of the full and already taped-up boxes. The two settled back into their original seats.

"I'm sorry again for my behaviour," Hermione said as she luxuriated in the smoky steam rising from her cup, pressing the warm rim against her bottom lip. "I didn't handle it well at all. I was childish to the extreme."

"Say no more. Please. Otherwise I shall be forced to admit how much of my office ended up needing judicious application of _Repairo_ after I saw the contract come through."

In truth, along with the broken vials, phials, flasks, and jars that needed mending, Severus had had to swallow his pride and make a very subtle trip to Madame Pomfrey to mend the knuckles on both hands after he got rip-roaringly drunk on firewhiskey and got into a punching match with a stone wall and a mirror, but there was no way in hell that he was telling Hermione any of that.

"I swear, I'm never touching prosecco again," Hermione moaned. "From now on, I shall embrace the fact that I drink like an old man and never stray from the Scotch. I wonder if I can even get good proper Scotch in America…" she mused.

"I'm inclined to join you in that vow." He inclined his head.

"Excellent. Now that we both learned our lesson, can we declare this null and void, chalk it up to something we'll laugh about in ten years, and shake hands and go on our merry ways?"

Severus sighed, wrapping his callused and stained but long and elegantly tapered fingers around his mug.

"Right?" Hermione prompted, panic tightening the word.

In lieu of a response, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an all-too-familiar tacky gold envelope, folded twice. He unfolded it and pulled out an equally garish piece of parchment, dusted with dusky swirls of gold and crawling with spidery script. He smoothed it out and handed it over.

Hermione froze, her arm unwilling to listen to her brain.

"Take it. It's not going to bite you. Read down to the bottom."

The sharp words of his professor voice startled her into movement, and she took the paper. Her eyes scanned the flowery pass-the-sick-bucket language and homed in on the smaller legalese, and she muttered under her breath as she read the words:

"This document is for your records and functions as a physical manifestation of the Unbreakable Vow taken at the time of proposal and acceptance. This vow acts as a legal, magical, and permanently binding agreement between the two parties (to be referred to as Fiancé and Fiancée respectively). Failure to honour the terms of the agreement through Ministry-recognised wedding or civil union ceremony within 60 days of proposal in accordance with the BROOM act (please see full BROOM act details for full list of conditions) will result in forfeiture of any and all magical abilities by binding by the Ministry of Magic Aurory Department."

Hermione handed the parchment back to Severus, not wanting to even maintain physical contact with it, and she sat back.

"Damn."

"Quite."

Hermione took a big swig of her tea, purposefully letting the still-scalding liquid pool on her tongue, welcoming the physical pain and ascribing to it the blame for her eyes flooding with tears.

Severus braced himself – he'd already seen anger, and he wasn't entirely keen on experiencing round two of that, but worse still would be if she crumbled and fell apart, with snivelling and weeping. He wasn't sure he'd be able to cope with that, and he felt the dread pool in his stomach as he watched her eyes swim.

But Hermione didn't snivel, and she didn't weep. She raised her head and shot him a rictus of a grin.

"So… That's that then. I wonder if they'll take a squib's application at McDonalds. After defeating the Dark Lord, a deep fryer can't be too hard to handle."

"Don't be ridiculous, woman. You can't honestly be considering giving up your magic."

"There's no other option."

"There clearly is, unless your brain has managed to fall out of your ear in the decade since you were in my classroom."

"I will not force or manipulate you into being yoked with me just to save my own skin."

"Both of our skins."

"Aaarg." Hermione got up, paced angrily across the room, and smacked the palm of her hand hard against the wall's painted plaster. She faced away from him, and her shoulders shook for a few seconds.

She drew one ragged breath that someone might, if they were being particularly uncharitable, have justification to describe with the word sob, and then she turned around, stony-faced and steel-eyed.

"I'm not going to America, am I?"

"I'm sorry for that. I really am. But there will be opportunities here, I know it, especially as you're still a shiny, virtuous hero and public darling." He took a breath, willing the resentment back out of his voice. "The University of Nottingham has a magical department that's quite prestigious."

"Nottingham? Nottingham? What are you on about? You live in London!"

"Do I need to reference the line about what happens when you make assumptions? I _work_ in London reasonably often when liaising with clients and making deliveries. I _live_ in a Victorian semi-detached in Nottingham."

Hermione sucked in a few deep, slow breaths through her nose. Nottingham? Nottingham?! She wasn't even sure she could place Nottingham on a map beyond jabbing a pin vaguely in the centre of the country. _Focus, Hermione. Priorities. It's not as if you have that much in London left to leave behind._

"So, how do we go about doing this in a way that makes that miserable, slimy little weevil of a Minister regret the first moment he even thought the word BROOM? I meant what I said the other night, even if the prosecco was what pushed me… us… to act on it. I've got the Slytherin-iest Slytherin that ever slithered into Slytherin here. Dazzle me."


End file.
